


Slowly, You Cleave To Her

by amoama



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:04:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoama/pseuds/amoama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From Kareen's Wedding to Gregor's, Alys Vorpatril is Kareen's witness, friend, comforter, partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slowly, You Cleave To Her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eve (Aoife)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/gifts).



> Warnings: Non-specific mentions of Serg's sexual violence towards Kareen and the canon character deaths of Serg, Vorrutyer and Padma.
> 
> Massive thanks to Phoenix Falls for betaing. She really wrenched this up by the bootstraps! All mistakes still mine though.

**The Princess at the Wedding**

Caught between the loneliness of leaving all her friends behind at home and the fierce intensity of her new husband’s attentions, Kareen had witnessed the Vorpatrils’ wedding as one in limbo would look through the gate to paradise. It was the picture of every Vor-romance holovid she had ever seen. Padma Vorpatril looked every inch Xav Vorbarra’s descendent, while the Lady Alys transcended perfection in Kareen’s eyes. Each aspect of her wedding was intricately choreographed and performed with a breathless grace. Alys confidently accepted all the compliments paid to her. She looked like the Empress Kareen could only hope to be one day, entirely serene where Kareen had been overwhelmed.

After the ceremony was over Prince Serg led Kareen over to congratulate the bride and groom. The newly-titled Lady Vorpatril greeted Kareen with a low curtsy that should have been impossible given how heavy her dress looked. She managed it prettily however and Kareen regarded Alys appreciatively. Kareen was not yet used to the formality and obeisance that came with her new life but it was a strange delight to watch such a striking woman as Alys bow her head and honor Kareen like this. Kareen knew her voice remained steady as she complimented Alys on how beautiful she looked though. She had had a lot of training in how to play her role without betraying whatever she felt on the inside. 

Kareen had promised to do her duty for Barrayar in her marriage; it did not mean she had to be dead inside! Especially when confronted with someone as vivacious as Alys Vorpatril.

Alys looked back at Kareen with wide and appraising eyes, “Princess Kareen, you honor me.” 

Kareen felt flooded by the affection in Lady Vorpatril’s gaze. A natural overspill of joy on her wedding day, Kareen supposed.

Alys gave Kareen a wide, brilliant smile. Then, without any real warning, she took hold of Kareen’s arm, abandoning the line of dignitaries waiting to congratulate the bride and groom and tugged Kareen out of the crowd. Kareen looked back, concerned at this sudden disregard for protocol, but Alys winked brightly at her, “I’m the bride and you’re the Empress-in-Waiting of All Barrayar and Komarr. They’ll wait for us.” 

Kareen felt herself smile back. Alys’s confidence was infectious. 

“Where are we going?” 

“There are wild swans in the garden that Padma’s mother breeds. You must see them before all the awful children I had to invite scare them off to the other side of the lake.”

Kareen let herself be spirited away, laughing as she felt Alys’s happiness bubble over into her. Despite knowing hundreds of eyes were on them, it still felt like the most liberating thing she’d done since she arrived in Vorbarr Sultanna. 

 

**The Bride at the Palace**

Alys climbed the imposing steps of the Residency’s Grand Atrium and instinctively felt underdressed. The steeply-arched ceiling deserved full evening wear and at least a rivière necklace, but she was only here for afternoon tea with Kareen and she knew dressing to befit the ancestry of the building would not suit her host today. 

Alys slowed her business-like pace to allow for her usual flutter of anxiety about the Eyes and Ears surely tracing her steps, and the inevitable wave of anger that followed. How many people were watching Kareen every moment as she grew paler and more silent in the face of her husband’s oh-so-unmentionable perversions and his coterie of torturers? Alys breathed out her disgust, and deliberately unclenched her jaw, reminding herself why she had come. Her Princess needed a friend. Alys had known _that_ from the first moment they met. 

Alys had wondered growing up who Ezar would choose – and they had all known it would be Ezar who chose for Serg. Alys had thankfully been protected by her parents’ arranging an early engagement to Padma. Perhaps it was still not widely known, certainly never talked about in polite conversation, but enough of the women whispered - in their private circles - about the Crown Prince who was by all accounts a monster. At Kareen’s wedding Alys had been overwhelmed with pity for Kareen as she tied herself into a life with Serg. Alys felt they had all colluded in keeping one of the Imperium’s most dangerous secrets, justifying it by telling themselves that, without the Vorbarras, the alternative was civil war. 

Kareen had always looked a little out-of-place: _rural Vor,_ to say the least. Tall and wiry with dark hair that dressed her face like an ImpMil fire-guard - she appeared far too athletic when she arrived for her looks to be truly appreciated by the city women. But Kareen’s manners were impeccable from the first moment and there was never a hair out of place, even if it did fall much farther forward than was precisely fashionable. Alys thought the other women did Kareen a disservice by assuming she was not built for courtly life. Alys saw resilience written on every line and had made it her business to befriend Kareen. Too many of their social group simply wanted to come for tea at the Palace and then run back to their friends to gossip about how characterless or mulish the Princess was. Alys had determined to never talk frivolously about Kareen behind her back.

Lately though, when she’d been to the palace Alys had found that she and Kareen had less and less to say to each other. Caught between inanities and the wealth of unspoken truths, there were no safe topics of conversation to fall back on. Alys had resorted to bringing cards and other games so that they could play silently for as long as was necessary. It suited them.

Alys entered the small salon where the Princess was waiting for her. Alys performed her curtsy as always, but rushed it a little so she could also give Kareen two effusive cheek-to-cheek kisses in the French style. Kareen gave a weak smile at her forwardness, but her thumb swept lightly over Alys’s cheek as she moved away. Then Kareen gestured to the card table in the corner of the room.

“What shall we play today, Alys?” 

Alys resigned herself to Kareen’s quiet mood and seated herself at the table. She suggested Durak and they settled down to play with Kareen as the Attacker and Alys in Defense. The stillness of the room was only disturbed by one or other of them expressing glee or frustration as the game twisted and turned. 

After Alys, whose concentration was far better, had won two games to one, they silently agreed to move to the long sofa by the window. They sat next to each other sipping honeyed tea. They were both waiting for the same thing – for Kareen to be ready to speak. There had been other days when she had said nothing at all and Alys had had to leave her to her inner turmoil. At last though, Kareen began whispering into Alys’s sympathetic ear. Her desperate horror disclosed in fits and starts. 

“Why am I not yet pregnant?”  
“I went to Ezar to ask for women to guard me.”  
“Serg has started letting _him_ watch us.” 

She didn’t need to whisper. Everybody here knew what was going on. 

Like all the other times, Alys hated that there was nothing she could do. She felt complicit. She had even gone to Padma and her father, asking them to speak to the Emperor as discreetly as possible, but until there was an heir, and perhaps even a spare, Kareen was defenseless. 

Alys stared blindly at the cards left out on the table and tried desperately to think of something to say. She took Kareen’s hand and put her other arm around Kareen’s shoulders. Eventually Kareen leaned into her and Alys sat still while her friend sobbed into her shoulder, dry, empty and always silent. Alys stroked her hair, intricately woven over her head and down her back. She offered hollow promises as comfort.

“Better times will come.”  
“Survive this and you can survive anything.”  
“You’ll have a baby soon.” 

She didn’t believe it entirely, because this was Barrayar and bad times were famed to last generations rather than years. Alys felt powerless watching Kareen endure so much and she vowed fervently to do everything she could to lessen Kareen’s sufferings. More than anything she wanted to hold Kareen in her arms and never let go. She wanted them to run away from this place and all its ceaselessly watching eyes and never look back. 

 

**The Waiting Room**

The conference room was cozy in its own way. It looked more like a richly-furnished drawing room than anything else. The green silk of the upholstery was rather sterilized by the huge vacuum doors that secured them in. No one had said anything for hours. It was just Kareen, Gregor, Ezar and Captain Negri. Ezar had been rolled down in a massive mahogany-framed wheelchair and there was an IV line attached to his left hand. He was pale-faced, staring at the screens hooked up to the walls. Kareen wasn’t sure if he had blinked in hours. Negri fussed around the Emperor, playing his nurse as much as his head of security. In contrast to Ezar, Negri was looking everywhere except the screen -- unless Ezar flinched at some drop of intelligence, and then Negri’s eyes shot to the console. Those moments seemed to be painfully few and far between, and they never elicited anything more than silence from the two men. Kareen had tried watching the screen but none of the code-words or abbreviations meant anything to her. It was more worth her while to study the men. 

Ezar looked older and more haggard than ever before. _This might do him in_ , Kareen thought. He could die from the stress of this invasion and she’d be left alone to deal with his son and protect his grandson. Kareen didn't know if she could forgive him for dying. _He got me into this, he should not be able to abandon me in it._

She wasn’t the only one it would be over for though: Negri would be finished too. He had been in too deep with Ezar to be trusted by Ezar’s son. Kareen knew of one attempt on Ezar’s life by Serg that Negri had personally prevented; perhaps there had been more. She knew Serg believed that Negri stood between him and what he wanted. After all, it was Negri who surveyed them all, who passed every report, video and voice recording on to the Emperor. Her whole life here in Vorbarr Sultanna it had felt as though these two had been above everything, pulling strings whenever they chose to. It seemed impossible that these two could finally have reached the limit of their power. 

Now though, it was Kareen who was studying them, down to the whites of Ezar’s eyes and the tight clench of Negri’s knuckles on the arm of the wheelchair. This war that they had commissioned was beyond their control now. They had given in to the warmongers who believed Escobar and those jump-holes were attainable. If Serg succeeded, if he captured Escobar and ensured Barrayar’s future security by controlling those entry ways, he’d be untouchable. No one would be able to bring down a hero that tall. Her own small encouragement of Vordarian felt too recent and hasty in the face of the prospect of an all-powerful Emperor Serg. Was that what Ezar wanted? Hadn’t he promised to protect her? 

The air was thick in the conference room and Kareen felt oppressed by it. It was like being buried alive, sitting here in this upholstered coffin, with every flicker of the console screen another shovel of dirt slung onto her grave.

All the information they received was nearly a day out of date. Eventually Negri put his ear piece back in, so the stream of information could come at him from two directions. Kareen was reminded of a holovid she had watched once that had reconstructed a Count’s execution. Ezar and Negri both had that look about them now. The deed was already done, whatever it was, but they remained transfixed by the terror of the death to come. As the hours ticked by, Kareen forgot that they were awaiting news of an overwhelming victory. 

When the news did finally come, none of it was good. Ezar croaked out the words, reading raw data from the desk console, his voice hoarse from fourteen hours without speaking. Gregor, who had behaved beautifully, started to fret at her skirts, clinging to her. She lifted him to her lap, resisting the urge to cover his ears as she tried to take on board what Ezar was repeating.

Kareen missed the number of ships obliterated, her mind failing to grasp the concept of a plasma mirror shield or field. She wasn’t sure what any of it meant, beyond thousands of lives lost, Barrayaran lives. She knew those soldiers from stiff parade-ground inspections and colorful trooping ceremonies – all the boys thrilled to be assigned ship duties. 

The Emperor read out: “Flag ship down. Incinerated.”

Kareen looked across at Negri, unable to believe the staggering implications. He stared back at her, saying nothing. 

It was Ezar who spoke, or rather, continued to speak: “The Crown Prince was leading the attack when his ship was hit by the rebound of its own firepower.” 

And then the words, not read from the screen: “My son is dead.” 

At that the Emperor collapsed back into his chair. Negri sat down heavily beside him. “He did it,” he said nonsensically. But nothing made any sense to Kareen at the moment. 

_Serg is dead._ The joy that ran through her was physically painful. She let out a gasp of relief, as though she had been punched with it. Her eyes begged the two men for confirmation. 

Ezar looked at her for a long moment. “He’s gone, Kareen.” 

She felt sick. There was so much certainty and acceptance in him. _He knew this would happen._ Kareen felt her mind shatter like glass, screaming. 

In the distance she knew Gregor was calling for her. 

They sedated her. 

When she woke up, she found herself laid out on a sofa, covered by a heavy green blanket. 

Someone was holding her hand, sitting on the floor, resting their head on her wrist. 

“Alys?” 

“How do you feel, Kareen?” Alys pushed up onto her knees, casting a doubtful glance up and down Kareen. 

“Gregor?” 

“He’s fine, sleeping. They’re waiting for you to explain properly about his father.”

“It’s true? He’s gone?”

Alys just nodded, smiling sadly at her. 

“So many lives lost,” Kareen felt the full weight of guilt as she spoke, because, in truth, fierce joy was still threatening to overwhelm her. 

“Too many. Vorhalas, Vorkalloner, Gottyan, Grishnov, Helski, Vorrutyer.” 

“Vorrutyer?” Kareen whispered, halting Alys's litany of the dead. 

Alys nodded, “It’s already all over ImpMil’s gossip net. Vorrutyer’s body is being brought back. He wasn’t on the Prince’s ship, he was dead already.”

“How?” Kareen was shaking. It’s felt so unreal, to have done nothing but sit in that conference room in absolute, monotonous silence for hour after hour, and then to emerge free of all her tormentors. 

“They say it was Lord Vorkosigan’s Betan lover. They say Vorrutyer caught her and she slit his throat.”

Kareen could see it, allowed herself to call the moment up in front of her eyes like a flashback. Every time she’d had been at the mercy of that man and wished she had the strength to do just that, to take a knife and cut. She pictured his blood pouring out, covering her. It would be messy and terrifying and she knew she would never have been able to stop her hand shaking enough to do it and win. But someone had, some other woman had looked in his eyes and had the strength to end him. It gave Kareen strength too. She pulled herself up on the sofa, reached to Alys to get her sitting beside her. She took Alys’s hands, bowed her face into them. 

“Oh god, Alys, Alys, they’re gone. That woman, whoever she is, I’m going to kiss her hands and her feet in gratitude. Did Vorkosigan make it? Is he bringing her to me?” 

“Aral made it. He was in charge of the retreat. Padma says he saved a lot of lives once they realized the weapons were useless. God what a mess. But I don’t know if the Betan will come. I hope so. I’d like to meet one. Especially one that interests Aral Vorkosigan.”

Kareen laid her head in Alys’s lap, let Alys soothe her brow, mother her a little. All this time Alys had been the only one here caring for her. 

“Thank goodness for you Alys, thank you for everything. How would I have made it without you?” 

“Ppssh, you’d have had to make do with Lady Vorrolk most likely. Or Keira Vormoncrief, imagine!” 

“Gregor likes Henri Vorrolk, Alys!” Kareen’s protest was muffled by Alys’s lap.

“Ha, well. He’ll like my son more.” 

“Your… what?” Kareen sat up to face Alys. “You’re pregnant?”

Alys’s smile glowed at her in confirmation. She took Kareen’s hand and put it on her belly; she could imagine it did feel a little firm and rounded. She hadn’t had the privilege of an earlier comparison. There was a flush to Alys’s cheeks that was heartbreakingly pretty. 

Kareen felt a stirring of want within her, more than her errant strands of jealously for the safe, happy life Alys led when she wasn’t visiting the palace. She’d managed to forget, over the course of her married life, what it was to want things for herself, beyond mere survival. It was strangely painful to be reminded of that now. She felt like she was teetering on the edge of a new-found freedom, unsure yet what the limits of that would be. Barrayar's future had been turned on its head and Kareen would have to find her place in it. 

Her hand rubbed carefully over Alys’s tummy. “Barrayar will need boys now.” 

Alys’s hand came up to her cheek, wiping away tears Kareen didn’t know were falling. “How Vor we are,” Alys reflected, “despite everything.” 

Kareen smiled helplessly at her, this friend who always steered her to safety.

“Come on,” Alys gentled. “Let me take you to your son.” 

 

**Two Vor Widows in One ImpMil Hospital Bed**

Alys was wheeled into a sparse room at ImpMil’s hospital. She and Ivan Xav were there for a checkup. Anyone whose baby was delivered by a wild-eyed and slavish Sergeant Bothari in a dirty alleyway on the wrong side of town was due a full medical work-up to reassure themselves they didn’t catch anything too ghastly.

There were at least 15 guards at various stations down the hallway, so Alys knew that Kareen’s room had to be nearby. She hoped it was not as cheerless a room as the one she was in. This was not a place fit for encouraging recuperation. When the doctors finally materialized she accosted them with a barrage of questions about the health of the Princess, but they only had the hospital scuttlebutt to pass on. 

Alys was not sure what it would take to get past all the guards and find out for herself. She usually just assumed clearance until told otherwise but this soon after an assassination attempt there would surely be a clamp down, or at least she hoped so. Besides she was still in all sorts of pain and was walking so carefully they could probably set up a barricade or two in the time it took her to reach the far end of the corridor once they realized she was not yet on the visitor list. 

Thankfully, not too much later, she spotted Simon Illyan hurrying past her room. Alys was glad she had insisted on the doctors leaving her door open. 

“Captain!” She hollered at him rather inelegantly in order to halt his progress past her room.

“Lady Vorpatril, is everything alright?” 

“I need you to take me to see the Dowager Princess Kareen if you’d be so kind. I’m still a little slow on my feet.” 

Captain Illyan paused for a moment, considering her request, and then he said, “She’s in a bad way, Milady. She could do with a friend I think.” 

“Of course she could.” Alys hoisted the sleeping Ivan up so his tiny head was tucked into the crook of her neck. “That’s why I’m going to see her.” 

She took the Captain’s arm and they walked slowly past guard after guard, all saluting impeccably and saying nothing. Illyan’s hands twitched towards Ivan at various intervals, but he never actually offered to carry the child for her. 

Half-way along Alys worked up the courage to ask: “How is she?” 

Alys felt Illyan stiffen beside her, as though coming to attention to debrief. “She’s much better, Milady. The disrupter fried most of the nerves in her left arm and fingers but it looked worse because she was hit by a stunner on her way down. She’s had some confusion about the order of events and who people are but that’s mostly been recovered now. They’re just waiting for her to get a little stronger before they begin the restructure on her hand.”

Simon’s voice was low and he spoke quickly as if his speed could blunt the sharp sting of his news. Alys was grateful for the information and warily tried to prepare herself not to expect the same woman she’d known till now. 

“It could so easily have been fatal,” Simon went on. And then: “She got lucky.”

Alys let out a little puff of disapproval at that. That was true for all of them but it didn’t make dealing with the after-effects any easier. She gripped Ivan a little tighter as they walked and felt herself lean on Simon a little more. 

They cleared the last of the Horus-eyed guards and the door to Kareen’s hospital room slid open. Kareen was lying listlessly in the bed, propped up slightly by the pillows and staring into space. In the corner of the room Gregor was playing quietly with a model lightflyer, zooming it frantically round his head while he handled the controls expertly. 

Kareen turned her head, resting her faraway gaze on Alys, a faint smile of welcome ghosting across her lips. She mouthed rather than spoke Alys’s name. 

Alys ducked her head and performed the correct obeisance to Gregor. The young Emperor lowered the lightflyer to the ground carefully, putting his controller down beside it, then stood up, patting down his rumpled clothes and making his way over to Alys. Alys was watching closely enough to catch the little look he sent his mother to check whether she approved of how well he was behaving. Gregor reached Alys and turned his head up to her, then fixed his eyes on Ivan. 

“Who is this, Lady Alys? Is it your baby?”

“This is Lord Ivan Xav Vorpatril, he’s my son and your cousin.” Alys replied, feeling she ought to make some stab at a formal introduction despite their combined age of five years, eight months and twelve days.

“Is he for me to play with?” Gregor asked doubtfully, “When he gets bigger?”

“Absolutely you two can play together if you like. Shall we introduce him to your mother?” 

Gregor nodded agreeably and took her hand to lead her to the bed. He scrambled up beside his mother and Alys took the liberty of perching herself on the other side, easing herself down gently as sitting was not fun this soon after giving birth. Kareen winced in pain as Alys got herself comfortable and Alys wasn’t sure if it was in sympathy or because her movement was causing Kareen pain. They both paused for a moment just taking each other in. Neither of them was exactly at their best, Alys supposed, and tried not to feel too disheartened about the fact that she was appearing before her Emperor and Dowager Princess dressed in a medical maternity robe that basically amounted to a long pillowcase. She could picture the disapproving glare her younger self would have given her now. But, she reminded herself, she was here to see Kareen and her son, and now they were both mothers and both widows and they’d been friends for a long time. It really should be enough. 

Kareen stretched her good arm, her right, up towards Alys, “Let me see the little one then.”

Alys lowered Ivan down to the bed beside Kareen who ran her hand over his head where black tufts of hair swirled nonchalantly. Ivan really was preposterously cute, Alys decided. 

“Oh, he’s beautiful,” Kareen let out, her voice shaking. Alys looked up at her to find her eyes watering. 

“Oh Alys, I’m so sorry, so very, very sorry about Padma.”

Alys tried desperately to cling on to the comforting numbness that had shielded her from her husband’s death so far. She had been leaking from every orifice for days: bleeding on and off, breast-feeding painfully, everything aching and feeling tender. Her heart felt fuller than ever before and yet so, so sore. She had cried in frustration, anger, bitterness, and from the sheer overwhelming tiredness of it all but it had all been a blessing in comparison to the crucifying grief she knew lurked below it. 

“Gregor,” Kareen instructed gently, “why don’t you ask Captain Illyan to take you out to the garden for a while? I think that must be why he’s dropped by.” She smiled at him and he leaned over to kiss her cheek. After a small hesitation, he stretched further over to kiss the forehead of baby Ivan as well, then launched himself off the bed and out the door to where Illyan was waiting. 

Alys looked at Kareen gratefully. She was clearly so ill, paler than Alys could ever remember her being, thinner and more fragile looking. But there was also a spark in her eyes that Alys had rarely seen, a flare of strength and survival that Alys desperately needed at the moment.

Kareen battled herself up the pillows, making room for Alys and Ivan. 

“Come here Alys.” Her arm stayed out wide, waiting to close around them. 

Gingerly Alys lowered herself down next to Kareen, curled herself into Kareen’s body. Ivan was a miracle of perfect health between their scarred bodies. Alys put her hand on his belly, caressing him. She rested her head on Kareen’s arm, thinking of the many times the comfort had gone the other way and how useless she’d always been afraid it was. It didn’t feel that way now. It felt like resuscitation, like she might actually have the strength to survive this. Before she could stop herself she was crying into Kareen’s shoulder, long, breath-stealing sobs that wracked her body and had to be jolting Kareen far too much. But Alys was too far beyond it all to do anything to stop herself. All she could think about was her loss, how alone she was now, how cruel it was that Padma didn’t exist anymore, that he wouldn’t get to hold Ivan and Ivan wouldn’t get to know him. Over and over in her mind she watched Padma crawl across the asphalt and reach for her, his body shot to pieces and his eyes frantic. She could see the moment he stopped reaching, the air leaving his lungs. She wailed her horror and her grief into Kareen’s body. At some point Ivan started crying too, and the noise was horrendous, but Kareen just rocked them gently back and forth. 

Alys was the first to stop bawling. She felt drained and exhausted but somehow much more clear-headed after expelling that awful, brutal first hit of grief. She looked down blankly at the still-squalling Ivan. It was Kareen who finally prompted, “I think he might be hungry.”

Alys nodded, not quite trusting her voice. She propped herself up a bit further on the bed, giving Kareen back the use of her arm, and gathered Ivan up to her with a shushing sound. She undid the part of her gown that covered her breast and angled her nipple at Ivan’s mouth. He latched on hard; there was a jarring moment of silence before he started to suck. 

This was her life now she knew, keeping going to the point of exhaustion and then picking Ivan up and carrying on. Alys hated to think how much harder this would have been without being able to crawl in here next to Kareen. 

It was Kareen's turn to lean her head on Alys’s shoulder as if sensing Alys’s need for reassurance. Kareen used her right arm to move her left up into view. Alys cringed to see the dead weight of it and pictured, probably too well, how burnt the flesh must be beneath the bandages. 

Painfully slowly Kareen lifted her damaged hand to the back of Ivan’s head, stroking in stiff, heavy motions. “How funny it is to not feel a thing, in the physical sense, but still to be so full of love for this little fellow. It seems to make up for the numbness in my finger tips.” 

Alys adjusted Ivan a little, making herself more comfortable and resting her head on top of Kareen’s. Again there didn’t seem to be much to say between them. 

After several long minutes spent listening to all the fascinating sounds Ivan was so far capable of, Kareen breathed out a long sigh and turned her face so her lips touched against Alys’s shoulder. 

“It’ll be okay, it’s over.” Kareen’s lips brushed Alys’s skin feather light as she murmured her reassurances, talking to herself as much as Alys.

“What will happen now?” Alys asked, letting the solid comfort of Kareen’s embrace seep into her.

“Hmm, not too much, I don’t suppose. We’ll raise our children and try to keep them out of trouble. Probably not the easiest of tasks in the circumstances, but we’ll stick together won’t we?”

“We’ve come this far,” Alys agreed.

Alys felt Kareen’s lips at her shoulder like a kiss, whether she meant them to be or not. 

It felt like make-believe to Alys, like a sleep-over she could have had with a friend in the years before her marriage. Two girls tucked in to one small bed, giggling together and planning their fairytale lives. It felt sacrilegious when her husband was still waiting to be buried, but it was also hope, and Alys could not bear to crush that in Kareen, who had never wanted more than to survive before now.

Alys remembered her promise from the long years lived in terror of the Crown Prince, a promise to make things better for Kareen if she could. Perhaps now was her chance. Perhaps the promise would go both ways. 

 

**Two Matrons on the Parade-Ground**

“Alys, you look stunning.” Kareen assured her, trying to capture Alys attention as she darted round the bedroom seeing to the “finishing touches”. 

A cream and deep rose jacket was clasped in at Alys’s waist with a beautiful ruby-decorated Vorpatril crest. Her skirt was floor-length, an old style that Alys managed to make seem new again. It flattered her figure and stature so well that Kareen felt a little stab of the old envy, reminding her of the first time she’d met Alys, on another wedding day, a lifetime ago. Alys always got it more exquisitely right than anyone else. Now though it was pride that Kareen felt, more than anything else.

A beat later: “Alys, are our outfits coordinated?”

“Of course! Our respective roles today mean we will be next to each other almost all day, it would be awful if we clashed.” 

“If you say so,” Kareen didn’t try to keep the teasing out of her voice. 

Alys stopped flying around the room at last and came to a standstill in front of Kareen, taking her in. Kareen tilted her head slightly, to receive a kiss.

“Hi,” Kareen said. “It’s been weeks since I’ve seen you, General Alys.”

Gregor’s nickname for Alys earned Kareen pursed lips and narrowed eyes, but Alys’s hands also landed delicately on Kareen’s hips, and immediately started soothing down the folds of Kareen’s outfit. 

“I know today will go perfectly and it will be all down to you,” Kareen promised conciliatorily. Anxiety brought Alys’s fraught frown back and Kareen didn’t think twice about leaning in to kiss away the lines creasing Alys’s forehead. 

“Stop worrying Alys. You have everything covered. I want you to enjoy the wedding too.”

Alys scoffed, “I’ll enjoy it afterwards, when I know it’s all worked out. Still,” she reflected, “the first victory is already accomplished. We both look lovely in our dresses but not too showy that we can't merge easily into the background when Laisa appears. The Dowager Princess can lay down her crown today I think.” 

Alys took the moment to pin a small flower into Kareen’s hair. “Flowers are the only crowns today,” she said sweetly, “After all, it’s our little Gregor getting married today as well as our Emperor. It’s just husbands and wives, mothers and sons who happen to be attending a very expertly staged and heavily guarded wedding.”

Kareen laughed, “And a few thousand dignitaries, but what of them?”

“Exactly. I’ve sat you next to Cordelia at the party, and most of them are still scared of her. You’ll have no trouble.”

“Thank you, love, I couldn’t be happier today.” Kareen kissed Alys gratefully, enjoying the lingering press of their lips. She really did feel as though she’d hardly set eyes on Alys since the wedding was announced. 

Alys squeezed her waist and smiled beatifically back at her. “Then it was all worth it, after all. And not just because I got to terrorize Ivan so thoroughly for weeks on end.”

Kareen’s laughter was muffled by a last kiss, full of the heady promise of _later._ Then Alys led the way down to the Wedding Breakfast.

*

_“I promise to love you forever and fiercely,_  
Hold your household and estates with integrity,  
Stand beside you through danger, and dearth, and death,  
And guide our children’s hands until they light our funeral offerings.” 

Laisa’s words carried clearly out over the parade ground, repeated in French, Russian, and her native Komarran language. Four times promised but just once fulfilled. Kareen snuck a look sideways to see Aral crying openly beside her, reflecting her own sense of happiness and relief at reaching this moment. Cordelia and Miles look on with bemused indulgence. Behind her she knew Alys was concentrating on marshalling the ceremonies. There would likely be a few tears from her later though, possibly when she had time to think about Ivan's disinterest in finding a partner. Kareen smiled as she picked out Ivan in the crowd, lurking behind Miles and hopping from foot to foot, trying to keep himself out of his mother’s line of sight. Sensible boy. 

Then it was Gregor’s turn to speak his vows and Kareen turned her attention back to her son. The blaze of pride she felt for him was unquenchable. It was an indulgence to think about how someone so beautifully strong and fair and honorable could have come from her. She looked around at their friends, the people who helped her in the raising of him, who sustained her at the beginning. It was a balm to her soul to watch her son choose this marriage, to know that it was up to Gregor and Laisa to make it work now but that at least the odds were not set against them. That she hadn’t let the burden of her own marriage fall on Gregor too much. 

Slowly, she reached her hand behind her and left it there until Alys took it. Of all her friends present here today, no one else had provided the support and reassurance, the infinite tenderness, love and strength that Alys had. She had been the one to bring Kareen back to life. 

Kareen thought about the way they had come together, after years of close friendship. There had been weeks where they held hands every time they met, touched each other more and more, stealing caresses: a press at the small of a back or fingers fluttering down the side of a thigh. Desire had filtered quietly into their actions almost without their realizing it until turning to kiss one another on the lips was the most natural of greetings, the most sobering of farewells. 

Kareen remembered the night after Gregor's seventh birthday, distracted by all the colorful streamers caught in Alys's hair as they made love for the first time. 

She smiled to herself thinking about the time they sat Gregor down together to explain about girls and boys and sex and love. Alys had been so much better at that then her. At least with Gregor.

Gregor had accepted Alys as a fixed point in their lives long before Kareen had acknowledged it herself. 

_Toujours and farouchement, навсегда, и свирепо,_ Gregor repeated. Every guest present and every well-wisher crowding up to the gates of the Residence could hear he meant it. 

Only Alys knew Kareen meant it too. 

*

At midnight Ivan officially declared the wedding _A Success!_ He was inebriated enough to risk being in the vicinity of his mother, and handed her a tall glass of maple ambrosia. “It’s Ma Kosti’s recipe, Ma,” he reassured her, grinning loquaciously. 

He generously bestowed a half hug on Alys as well as the mead, and then smacked a kiss against her cheek for good measure. Alys managed not to look too taken aback. 

“It’s midnight, Mama! We pulled it off! Now it’s time to celebrate!” With that Ivan whisked himself off again, lost in the crowd in seconds. 

Kareen brought her own glass up to clink against Alys’s. “Want to get out of here?” Kareen asks. 

Alys’s eyes lit up. “You know,” she said leadingly, “I think there are some swans at the bottom of the sunken gardens somewhere, if you wanted to go see them.” 

Kareen laughed happily at the idea and linked her arm in Alys’s, letting her lead on into the night.


End file.
